Body Electric Part 5: The Mind-Body-Tech Connection

TED Radio Hour

NPR

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.4 • 21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In part five: host Manoush Zomorodi investigates what information overload does to our physical and mental health. Could our tech use be interfering with the critical dialogue that takes place between the body and the brain? Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Sahib Khalsa shares his latest research on interoception — the brain's ability to sense how the body is feeling — and how finding time to unplug from our devices can help us tune into our body's natural signals.

Also in this episode: neurologist Caroline Olvera takes us inside the "TikTok tics" outbreak — exploring why thousands of teens developed Tourette's-like symptoms after watching TikTok videos in 2021. Plus, how a school in Washington, DC helps kids stay connected to their bodies by creating a high-movement, low-tech environment.

Click here to find out more about the project: npr.org/bodyelectric

Are you signed up for Columbia's study, or following along with the series? We want to hear from you! Send us a voice memo at [email protected]. Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ, and on Facebook @tedradiohour.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from an PR sponsor, ServiceNow.
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0:19.2	Hey, it's Manouche.
0:21.6	So, do you remember back in 2021,
0:25.8	when this strange phenomenon began developing?
0:30.5	Teenagers all over the world suddenly started showing
0:35.6	Tourettes-like symptoms, seemingly out of nowhere.
0:40.3	What we started to see is women that are college-aged.
0:44.0	So, 18 to 19 come in with like an abrupt onset of ticks that are very violent, very severe
0:50.6	that they had to go to the emergency room for.
0:52.9	Caroline Olvera is a neurologist in Chicago, and she had treated plenty of teenagers with
0:58.3	tick disorders in the past, but the symptoms were usually more mild and came on gradually.
1:04.8	Oh yeah, so if you look at a typical kind of timeline of ticks,
1:08.8	the kid might notice it get worse or their parents, and that's when they're typically
1:12.5	brought to see a physician or a neurologist, but if you like sit down and talk to them,
1:17.5	it's been going on for years.
1:19.5	These cases were different, patient after patient after patient with sudden severe symptoms.
1:28.4	Really for like three months, we were seeing a couple every week, which doesn't sound like a lot,
1:34.1	but when you're used to seeing one of those patients a year, then it's kind of a pattern.
	...

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